Hulkamanic 36 said:
The people with these law suits won't win and its a bloody shame because all the league teams are scared. Many I should try and sue all the AFL forums till I turn blue and see if they do the same.
They may not win, but I can certainly see where they may well have a case against the club that owns the board as the publisher of the defamatory material and even if the board is heavily moderated, what is the acceptable timeframe to remove a defamatory post before you are liable for publishing it to the world?
Keep in mind that publishers are routinely sued for publishing defamatory material in this country and they regularly lose.
Dictionary definition of publish -
1 a : to make generally known b : to make public announcement of
2 a : to disseminate to the public b : to produce or release for distribution; specifically : PRINT 2c c : to issue the work of (an author)
intransitive senses
A forum fits that.
Evonne Cawley/Goolagong sued The Bulletin over a letter to the editor.
Steve Price: Suing Crikey and Stephen Mayne personally over a press release by Raymond Hoser that was read by less than 200 people and downloaded by 340 different people.
Tony Abbott: successfully sued Random House (the publisher) over Bob Ellis' book, Goodbye Jerusalem.
Would you bet your house that they won't win? I wouldn't.
Assuming they do lose and a precedent is set, we may well see the boards come back.
It occurs to me that one protection might be to force all users to use a screen name and make it a banning offence to reveal your own name or anyone elses, I expect it is hard to defame "Husky65" if nobody knows who that is, however it doesn't stop Tim Mander (for example) suing the club if he is defamed (can you defame Tim Mander?) on the clubs boards.
But defending against a lawsuit can be expensive and I'd rather see that money put into the club/team right now than put aside and reserved for use as a loon mallet.
